


My obligatory migraine fic which i must write for every fandom i get into

by taylor_tut



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character, Sickfic, sick jaskier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22458328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: What it says on the tin. Jaskier gets a migraine on the road and both Geralt and Jaskier think it's a hangover until the pain is unbearable. Geralt panics a little lol.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 564





	My obligatory migraine fic which i must write for every fandom i get into

“How is it,” Jaskier queries aloud, once voicing a thought that he’s been on about all day, “that although I only had a single glass of mulled wine last night, I’ve still got such a raging headache?” 

“Perhaps it’s all the talking,” Geralt quips, but Jaskier is barely listening. 

“I’m not as young as I once was, Geralt,” he complains, “that’s one thing I know to be true. It seems I can’t even have a drop of drink without paying a steep price the next morning. My best years of tavern debauchery may be behind me.”

“Pity.” Geralt has been listening to Jaskier whine about his aching head all day. What’s strange, he thinks, about this hangover is that Jaskier did not wake up with it and, as he’s so incessantly pointed out, that he hadn’t even been drunk the night before. 

“Had I known that I would suffer thusly, I’d have gotten drunker, because right now, this,” he gestures to his own pale face, “is not worth it.”

“Hm,” Geralt grunts, because he doesn’t have the patience to keep replying in full and Jaskier never seems to have a problem carrying on even without response. 

“I’ll never touch the stuff again, Geralt, I swear,” he promises, not for the first time since they’ve met. Jaskier does this: drinks until he’s ill or at least makes some sort of terrible, regrettable decision, then wakes up the next morning, swears off the bottle for all of a day and a half, then seems to forget all about it and repeats the cycle. 

The worst thing Geralt could say about it is that Jaskier is not good at committing. 

The best thing Geralt could say about it is that Jaskier forgets pain all too easily and can carry on mere days after something terrible happens, acting like everything isn’t falling apart all the damned time. 

The second answer probably bodes better for Geralt, but if he’s being honest, he hopes it’s the first.

\--------------------------

Jaskier is getting quieter. He hasn’t touched his lute all day, but when they’d started walking, he’d at least been talking, but not anymore. It’s blessedly, auspiciously quiet.

Geralt thinks it’s too good to be true, and he’s right. 

“Geralt,” Jaskier whines, the first conversation he’s initiated in hours. He’s been muttering to himself on and off, but now he’s stopped short in the road. 

“What,” Geralt demands. 

“Can we take a break?” 

Geralt, too, stops, initially to chastize him, but the scolding words die in his throat when he sees Jaskier’s face. He’s pale and looking truly miserable, a hollow look to his eyes that he’s learned to associate with only the most dire of situations.

“We’ve barely made any headway,” Geralt points out. If they’re to get to the mountainside by the following nightfall in time for the full moon, their schedule has to be demanding and precise, and presently, they’re barely keeping up with it. 

“I know,” Jaskier sighs, “but this is the worst headache I’ve ever had in my life. I know it’s my own fault for drinking so much, but…”

When he trails off, he looks up to meet Geralt’s gaze. One eye is bloodshot, possibly from where he’s been pressing his hand against it all day, and if Geralt didn’t know better (but, of course, with Witcher senses, he did), he’d have thought him ill. 

“Are you sure this is just a hangover?” he asks anyway, and Jaskier’s answer is slow. It’s tentative. 

It’s a lie.

He pauses, then shrugs, then nods. 

“I’m fine,” he claims. “Just… tired, maybe.”

Geralt decides to have a little mercy and motions toward Roach, helping Jaskier onto her back. He uses the moment of physical contact to check for fever, which he doesn’t find. 

“Thank you,” Jaskier says. He’s relieved and Geralt is happy to see that. 

“Don’t make a habit of it,” he warns. He takes the reins and pushes forward once more.

\----------------------------------

The forest is silent for a few hours, but he can find no peace in it. Quiet Jaskier is somehow worse than constantly-chattering Jaskier, though he’d rather die than admit that aloud. 

He tries to enjoy it, telling himself that it won’t last long and that as soon as Jaskier gets a meal and a good night’s rest in him, he’ll be back to his usual, annoying self. 

Then, something happens that Geralt is not anticipating. 

Jaskier slides off Roach's back. Geralt has been walking beside Roach, and when Jaskier falls, it’s onto his shoulders. 

It's not quite intentional, but not quite an accident, either: more of a controlled fall which leaves him on his feet, but unsteadily so, and covering his eyes with one hand. After letting out a quick, surprised curse, he slides Jaskier off the horse and steadies him. 

Geralt has supported Jaskier’s weight on surprisingly few occasions. Never when he’s been drunk, and never when he’s been tired. 

The first time was after the djinn attack. 

Another, after a bad fall twisted Jaskier’s ankle so badly that Geralt could see the outline of the bone in his skin; Jaskier had taken one look at it and promptly fainted, waking up only several hours after a mage had healed him completely. 

And now, for no reason that Geralt could discern.

"Jaskier," he mutters, fearing, for lack of a better explanation, that the bard has been cursed. His eyes are shielded as if the even the dim light of the sun through the forest canopy is blinding, and he's shaking with what has to be pain. 

"I'm—I can't—ngh," he trails off. Geralt guides him to sit against the trunk of a tree with firm hands on his biceps. "You can go on, if you need to, but I have to stop." 

Geralt pretends he hadn't heard the offer, because if he'd heard it, then he'd have to come up with a reason not to take it. "What's wrong?" he demands, his voice booming and low with confusion and worry. Jaskier shrinks away from him. 

"Haven't a clue," he says through a clenched jaw. "Feels like my eye is exploding. The light is killing me." Geralt frowns and presses a hand to Jaskier's forehead, surprised to find it devoid of heat, if a bit clammy. 

"You need a healer," he decides. "Get back on Roach." 

"Geralt, I can't," Jaskier argues, a pink note of desperation in his tone that Geralt hasn't heard since the djinn incident. Panic wells inside him and, like always, he pushes it down. 

"You will," Geralt commands. Jaskier finds the energy to chuckle humorlessly. 

"You're an arse." 

"I know." Geralt reaches into their bag of supplies and fishes around for bandages, which he wraps gently around Jaskier's head to shield his eyes. "To block out the light," he explains, and Jaskier seems to relax a little, or maybe that's wishful thinking. Geralt helps him onto the horse, then climbs onto her back himself, sitting in front of Jaskier and taking the reins. He almost shudders when Jaskier presses his forehead to Geralt's neck with a pained moan. The amount of light that is getting through the bandages has to be minimal, and the fact that even that is clearly bothering him is making Geralt nervous. 

He commands Roach to run as fast as she can.

The doctor laughs when Geralt follows her into the kitchen with wide, fearful eyes. She's an older woman, and big, too. Tall and stocky, with brown hair shaved close against her head and kind eyes. 

He'd half-carried Jaskier into her house, allowing Jaskier to explain his symptoms, but her face had been impossible to read. Geralt had interjected when he felt that Jaskier was skipping over important bits of the story and felt cold inside when Jaskier told her things that he hadn't even told Geralt, about the pain, the duration, the nausea. She'd tried to give him a blanket, but the feel of the soft fabric against his skin had been unbearable and he'd ended up kicking it off. 

Her examination of Jaskier is a short one. After listening to everything, she simply excuses herself from the room with Geralt hot on her heels.

"Oh, Witcher," she smiles gently, speaks quietly. "I've heard tales of your travels—many of them from the mouth of this man, himself, and those who repeat his stories. Had I not seen it myself, I'd have thought you fearless."

"Can you help him?" Geralt demands, ignoring her light taunts. She nods patiently. 

"Yes," she says, "of course I can." Geralt reaches into his pockets for a bag of coins, and though her back is turned, she can hear the jingling and waves a hand at him. "No need for that, sir," she dismisses. He watches her work while he waits for an explanation, grinding up small beans with a mortar and pestle before dumping the grounds into a cheesecloth filer and pouring hot water over it. 

Geralt sighs. "Please," Geralt begs. "He needs to be cared for."

When she turns around, it's with a mug of black, bitter-smelling liquid.

"And he shall be," she replies. "But what your friend needs is nothing more than a day or two's rest."

Geralt is taken aback. "But he's ill. If you do not have a cure, I will take him to someone who does."

She gestures to the mug, into which she dissolves a small spoonful of sugar and a bit of milk. 

"This should help with the pain," she explains, "though it might make him a bit restless. If that happens, I can give him something to aide sleep."

Geralt huffs a sigh. "You're not listening—"

"Geralt of Rivia," she curtails, "YOU'RE not listening. The bard is fine. He shows no signs of fever or injury. I do not believe he is under any spell, either. He simply has a headache. It will get better."

"A headache," he deadpans. Geralt disagrees. He's seen Jaskier with headaches before, after nights of hard drinking or days with little food and water.

"Yes, albeit a very bad one. It's not the first case I've seen. In fact, I, myself used to get them frequently while I was pregnant with my son. It may be alarming for someone who has never had one before, but trust me, he will have no ill-effects. It will run its course, and then it will pass."

"How are you so sure?" 

She has retreated from the kitchen and back into the room where Jaskier is sitting on the sickbed, leaning heavily against the wall. If his eyes weren't shut so tightly, Geralt might have thought he'd fallen asleep. She presses the mug into his hand and Jaskier pries one eye open to look at it. 

"It will help to lessen the pain and to get you back on your feet faster."

Jaskier has fewer questions than Geralt does, accepting the mug with a whispered, "thank you," and taking a long sip. 

"You must keep in mind that you are only human, little one," she chastizes. A salve she pulls from the wall smells minty when she uncorks the top, and she shakes it with her finger over the opening to wet it before massaging the oil lightly into Jaskier's temples. "And if someone will not slow down for you, then they are not worth keeping up with." 

Geralt likes her honesty. She says things Jaskier needs to hear from lips other than his own. 

Jaskier nods, not considering the advice for even a moment. 

"The dark and the quiet will help. I must go into town for a bit. I will check on you when I return."

Without another word, she shuts the door behind her, leaving Geralt and Jaskier alone in the room. 

Neither of them wants to be the one to break the silence, but for once, Geralt decides to. 

“The doctor thinks you’ll be fine.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes. Geralt blinks. 

“For what?”

Jaskier gestures vaguely with one limp hand. “This,” he says unhelpfully. “For slowing you down, all for something that turned out to be nothing.”

Geralt chuckles once mirthlessly. “This,” he argues, “is not nothing.”

“Well, it’s nothing serious, I mean,” Jaskier explains. “It’s not as if it’s going to kill me.”

“Do you think something has to almost kill you for it to matter?” When Jaskier is silent, it suddenly becomes obvious that the assumption is not one Jaskier has made, but one he’s extrapolated from a lot of evidence. “Right,” he mutters, “of course you do. Because otherwise I never listen.”

“Geralt, as adorable as your guilt-spiral is,” Jaskier interjects, “can you stop talking? My head.”

Geralt nods though Jaskier can’t see it. 

“Sleep,” Geralt instructs. “We will stay as long as you need.” Jaskier, for once, listens to him. 


End file.
